ELMENTEITA IN SEPTEMBER 
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a reliable and intelligent hunter to boot, he ought to 
have known. My own impression of the animal seen, 
however, but little accords with descriptions of the 
heavily-built aoul, the only point of resemblance being 
its habit of “ bucking,” or bounding, after the style of 
impala or springbok, whenever it commenced to move. 
There, for the present, I must leave it. 
Lake Elmenteita being salt, it was necessary to camp 
at its extreme west end, where a lovely stream of sweet 
water empties into it. This involved a long and heavy 
grind under the fierce midday sun, during which I was 
almost knocked over by a wart-hog. The brute must 
have been sleeping so near the mouth of its den, that 
when an askari walked over it the boar bolted, snorting 
and grunting, in a cloud of dust. I was only a few yards 
behind; consequently the pig was all but into my legs 
before either of us realised the situation. Luckily he 
swerved aside in the nick of time, as I had nothing but a 
stick in my hands. 
Once before, in the Transvaal, I had had an even 
closer shave with a wart-hog. It was the Twelfth of 
August, and we were holding that festival in the best 
way available in Africa—francolins taking the place of 
grouse—when in a patch of bush our dogs gave tongue 
in a key that denoted something bigger than “ grouse.” 
On hurrying up, we found a furious fight raging within 
an ant-bears cave. Poor “ Flo ” backed out bleeding— 
she was unprepared for what she had found within that 
hole ; but “ Chops ” (always there when biting had to 
be done) stuck to it. I had just reached the spot, and 
was stooping to look down the den, when a great blue- 
grey beast filled the hollow, his ivory tusks gleaming like 
a white collar round his neck. That was all I saw, for 
in an instant he was on me—or rather where I had been ; 
for I had jumped aside, pulling trigger at the same 
moment, the gun-muzzle within six inches of the beast’s 
back. Through the cloud of smoke and dust I saw the 
unknown beast pitch forward on his head and roll over, 
dead. The No. 6 shot had shattered the vertebrae, one 
